In the earliest days of my blogging career — well, to be honest that was just 18 months ago! — people taught me about getting my name out there by commenting on well-known blogs and guest posting at big blogs. While the guest posting strategy definitely had a strong pull for new readers, it became clear that commenting on the biggest blogs was a desperate attempt to get your voice heard in a place where there was a bunch of noise.

Today I want to suggest an alternative strategy. Instead of focusing on the A-Listers, look at emerging talent as a way to grow a loyal blog community. My fellow {grow} columnist Stanford Smith said that one of his strategies is to “kiss lots of digital babies.” I think that is a smart perspective. The blogosphere is like an unlimited NBA draft with tons of talent accessible to anyone who can shed their ego and look for an opportunity to connect.

New Bloggers Need Encouragement. When people start their blogs, it can be demoralizing when nobody is reading or commenting. How often do you look at the blogs of the people who comment on your blog? Baby bloggers become big bloggers. Can you take just a moment to see what they’re up to? Join their tribes and invite them to join yours.

New Bloggers are Looking For a Lifeline: As an established blogger you have a chance to become a lifeline for a new blogger. My friend Bernardo Ramirez recently started a personal development video blog. It was a week old and he commented on one of my posts. So, I decided to see who he was and what he was up to. I was so blown away by the quality of video blog posts that he had, that I invited him to do a guest post, initiating what I hope will be a long relationship.

New Bloggers Become New Readers: Most new bloggers are looking for additional blogs to read, while established bloggers tend to have a set reading list and occasionally add new feeds to their RSS reader. New bloggers are looking to learn from established bloggers and as a result they end up becoming loyal subscribers. I’d say the majority of people who comment on my blog these days are digital babies on the rise.

New Bloggers Can Teach Us Things We Don’t Know: The beginner’s advantage is that they have no preconceived notions of how things should be so they tend to be more open to new ideas, take more risks, and play like they have nothing to lose. When you think about it, we really need new bloggers to keep starting blogs because we need fresh ideas to keep making progress.

As you think about how to grow your tribe and build your network over the next couple of months give some thought to what emerging talent you may be neglecting. Then, start reading their blogs and providing a lifeline to them. Do you have examples where you are using your influence to pay it forward?

Srinivas Rao is a contributing writer to {grow}. You can read more of his original writing at The Skool of Life blog or listen to his podcast at BlogcastFM. Follow him on Twitter at @skooloflife

Last week I attended an explosive panel discussion at SXSW. With the mild-mannered title of “Debating Brands’ Role as Publisher” sparks flew as Joe Pulizzi, founder of the Content Marketing Institute and Lora Kolodny, a contributor to the New York Times and Money, sparred with the aggressive moderation of Tom Ashbrook , the host of NPR’s On Point, egging them on.

While there was actually five on the panel, the explosions between Pulizzi, Kolodny and Ashbrook made the highlight reels.

Pulizzi earnestly defended the growing corporate commitment to content as a viable marketing device — even filling the vacuum left by the declining traditional media. He said consumers don’t have three seconds for a brand but will have 30 minutes for a story. Kolodny lamented the trend and sneered at the idea of companies providing anything in an altruistic manner. Ashbrook stopped Pulizzi in his tracks when he asked him if companies would tell a story about killing babies with Bisphenol A

At various times both sides garnered applause but in the end the viewpoints remained far apart.

It didn’t have to be that way. I think marketing professionals simply need to state the obvious: We’re not journalists, and we can’t try to be. Similarly, Lora could probably admit that the plentiful corporate coffers are funding some useful and entertaining content.

As individuals and as a nation, we need fiercely independent journalists, It is essential to democracy. And that role can never be served by public corporations and content marketing efforts. I think that is all marketing professionals have to say to take the emotion out of the conversation. There is no reason these disciplines can’t happily co-exist by simply acknowledging the limits and opportunities on both sides.

What do you think? Are there threats presented when corporations try to fill the gap left by the decline of traditional media?

This corporate blogging question was submitted to me by our good {grow} friend Brent Pohlman:

On a scale of 1-to-5, with 5 being a requirement, which items are most critical to a great blog post?

Great Title

Image

Introductory Paragraph

Content with facts, figures and links,

Call to Action,

RSS Feed,

Social sharing options

Boy that is a tough one … and my answer might surprise you.

First, any company blog should be aligned with your marketing objectives and those will vary company to company. But to keep things simple, let’s say the over-arching goal of every post is to get the thing read!

Here is my take on it, more or less in order …

1. Great headline (Rating: 5.0) — You are fighting through a lot of noise, a ton of competing content and SEO tricksters trying to push you to the bottom of the reading list. Sometimes the only thing that will save a blog post is a great headline. Bloggers agonize over headlines and still rarely get them right. They have to be accurate, descriptive, attention-grabbing, and short enough to tweet. Many people will never get to your content unless you grab them by the throat with your headline.

2. Insanely great content (5.0) – You want people to return to your blog over and over. Fight to never disappoint them. Being original, consistent, and compelling is hard work. An acronym I use with students is RITE — Your blog posts should be Relevant, Interesting, Timely and Entertaining.

3. Social sharing (4.0) — I know this will surprise a lot of people, but hear me out! After the headline, the next thing that usually grabs attention is the number of times it has been tweeted. So of course having a sharing option is important if you want your post to be read widely, but the social validation of having a few tweets at the top is also a crucial psychological reinforcement that says: “this is a post that should be read!”

4. Introductory Paragraph (3.5) – I am a big believer in stating what you have to say and get on with it. Don’t waste people’s time or make them work to find the value in the article. Overall, keep your articles short.

5. RSS feed (3.0) – I learned a painful lesson last year. Most people don’t even know what an RSS feed is! I was confounded why my subscriptions weren’t increasing at a faster rate. Once I changed the prompt to “email subscription,” instead of RSS feed, it took off like a rocket.

6. Image (3.0) — There are plenty of great blogs that don’t have images. There are plenty of great blogs that also diminish their appeal through a poor use of over-used stock photos. I use illustrations as a way to capture attention and entertain but I don’t think it trumps content.

7. Call to Action (1.0) — This low rating may also surprise some folks. Here is my logic. Your readers are absolutely sick of being sold to and marketed to. Certainly it is OK to discuss new products and services in a helpful way but if readers feel they are being pushed into something every time they come by, they’ll stop coming. Give them content that is useful and helpful and the business relationships will take care of themselves.

Now here’s the FUN part! What do the {grow} readers think? What would YOUR scorecard look like?

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You’re in marketing for one reason: Grow.
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-Mark Schaefer